.TH GROFF_FILENAMES 5 "7 February 2022" "groff 1.22.4" .SH NAME groff_filenames \- filename extensions for roff and groff . .\" ad l .\" ==================================================================== .\" Legal Terms .\" ==================================================================== .\" .\" Copyright (C) 2013-2018 Free Software Foundation, Inc. .\" .\" This file is part of groff, a free software project. You can .\" redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General .\" Public License version 2 (GPL2) as published by the Free Software .\" Foundation (FSF). .\" .\" The license text can be found in the internet at .\" . . . .\" ==================================================================== .SH DESCRIPTION .\" ==================================================================== . Since the evolution of .I roff in the 1970s, a whole bunch of filename extensions for .I roff files were used. . . .P The .I roff extensions refer to preprocessors or macro packages. . These extensions are fixed in all .IR Unix \-like operating systems. . . .P Later on, .B groff added some more extensions. . This .I man page is about these filename extensions. . . .\" ==================================================================== .SH COMPRESSION OF ROFF FILES .\" ==================================================================== . Each .I roff file can be optionally .IR compressed . . That means that the .I total filename ends with a .IR "compressor name" . . So the whole filename has the structure .IR . [ . ] . . . .P Best-known are the .I compressor extensions .BR .Z , .BR .gz , and .BR .bzip2 . . Relatively new is .BR .xz . . . .P From now on, we will ignore the .I compressions and only comment the structure .IB . \fR.\fP . . .\" ==================================================================== .SH MAN PAGES .\" ==================================================================== . The .I Unix manual pages are widely called .IR "man pages" . . The .I man page style is the best known part of the .I roff language. . . .P The extensions for .I man should be better documented. . So this is documented here. . . .P Files written in the .I man language use the following extension: .BI *.
[] \fR.\fP . . .\" ==================================================================== .SS Man page Sections .\" ==================================================================== . The traditional .I man page
is a digit from .B 1 to .BR 8 . . . .TP .IB .1 .TQ .IB .2 .TQ .IB .3 .TQ .IB .4 .TQ .IB .5 .TQ .IB .6 .TQ .IB .7 .TQ .IB .8 Classic man page .IR sections . . . .P .\" NOTE: There was once a feeble attempt in this direction, but it .\" hasn't been true in any sense for a long time. .\"Linux added the section number .\".B 9 .\"for kernel man pages. .\". .\". .\".TP .\".IB .9 .\".I Linux .\"kernel man pages .\". .\". .P In older commercial .I Unix systems, the 3 characters .BR l , .BR n , and .B o were also used as .I section names. . This is today .IR deprecated , but there are still documents in this format. . . .TP .IB .l .TQ .IB .n .TQ .IB .o .I Deprecated man page sections, which stood for \[lq]local\[rq], \[lq]new\[rq], and \[lq]old\[rq], respectively. . . .\" ==================================================================== .SS Man page Group Extensions .\" ==================================================================== . The .I extension in .BI .
[] is optional, but it can be any string of word characters. . Usually programmers use a group name that is already used, e.g.\& .B x for X Window System documents or .B tcl to refer to the .I Tcl programming language. . . .P Examples: . . .TP .B groff.1 is the man page for .B groff in .I section .B 1 without a .I group . . .TP .B xargs.1posix.gz is the man page for the program .B xargs in .I section .B 1 and .I group .BR posix ; moreover it is .I compressed with .B gz .RB ( gzip ). . . .TP .B config.5ssl .I "OpenSSL CONF" library configuration files from .I section .B 5 with .I group .BR ssl . . . .TP .B dpkg\-reconfigure.8cdebconf man page for the program .B dpkg\-reconfigure in .I section .B 8 and .I group .BR cdebconf . . . .\" ==================================================================== .SS Source of man pages .\" ==================================================================== . There are 2 .I roff languages for writing man pages: .B man and .BR mdoc . . . .P The names of these 2 styles are taken as .I extensions for the source code files of man pages in the .I groff package. . . .TP .IB .man .I traditional Unix-like man page format within groff source files. . . .TP .IB . n A temporary man page file produced from a .IB name .man man page by a run of .B make within the .B groff source package. . . .TP .IB .mdoc Man page format in BSD. . . .TP .IB .1b Man page format in .IR "heirloom roff ". . . .TP .IB .mandoc Files using this extension recognize both man page formats in .B groff and other processors. . . .\" ==================================================================== .SH TRADITIONAL TROFF EXTENSIONS .\" ==================================================================== . .\" ==================================================================== .SS Files Using Macro Packages .\" ==================================================================== . The .I "classical roff" languages were interpreted by the traditional .B "troff" and .B "nroff" programs. . . .P There were several .I roff languages, each represented by a .IR "macro-package" . . Each of these provided a suitable file name .IR extension : . . .TP .IB .me .I roff file using the .B me .IR "macro package" . . . .TP .IB .mm .I roff file using the .B mm .I macro package . . .TP .IB .ms .I roff file using the .B ms .I macro package . . .P All of these classical .I roff languages and their extensions are still very active in .BR groff . . . .\" ==================================================================== .SS Source Code for Macro Packages (TMAC Files) .\" ==================================================================== . In traditional .I roff the source code for the macro packages was stored in .I TMAC files. . Their file names have the form: . . .TP .BI tmac. \fR,\fP .I is the name of the macro package without the leading .B m character, which is reintegrated by the option .BR -m . . . .P For example, .B tmac.an is the source for the .B man macro package. . . .P In the .B groff source, more suitable file names were integrated, see later on. . . .\" ==================================================================== .SS Preprocessors .\" ==================================================================== . Moreover, the following .I preprocessors were used as filename extension: . . .TP .IB .chem for the integration of chemical formulas . . .TP .IB .eqn for the mathematical use of equations . . .TP .IB .pic graphical tool . . .TP .IB .tbl for tables with .I tbl . . .TP .IB .ref for files using the .B prefer .I preprocessor . . .\" ==================================================================== .SS Classical Roff Files .\" ==================================================================== . .TP .IB .t .TQ .IB .tr for files using the .I roff language of any kind . . .\" ==================================================================== .SH NEW GROFF EXTENSIONS .\" ==================================================================== . .I "GNU roff" .B groff is the actual .I roff standard, both for classical .I roff and new extensions. . So even the used new extensions in the source code should be regarded as actual standard. . The following extensions are used instead of classical .B .t or .BR .tr : . . .TP .IB .groff .TQ .IB .roff general ending for files using the .I groff language . . .\" ==================================================================== .SS Source Code for Macro Packages (TMAC Files) .\" ==================================================================== . As the classical form .BI tmac. \fR,\fP of the .I TMAC file names is quite strange, . .I groff added the following structures: . . .TP .IB .tmac .TQ .BI m .tmac .TQ .BI groff_m .tmac . . .\" ==================================================================== .SS Files Using new Macro Packages .\" ==================================================================== . .I Groff uses the following new macro packages: . . .TP .IB .mmse file with swedish .B mm .I macros for .B groff . . .TP .IB .mom files written in the .I "groff macro package" .B mom . . .TP .IB .www files written in .BR HTML -like .I groff .IR macros . . . .\" ==================================================================== .SS Preprocessors and Postprocessors .\" ==================================================================== . .TP .IB .hdtbl Heidelberger tables, an alternative to the preprocessor .IR tbl . . See .BR groff_hdtbl (7). . . .TP .IB .grap files written for the graphical .B grap processor. . . .TP .IB .grn for including .BR gremlin (1), pictures, see .BR grn (1). . . .TP .IB .pdfroff transform this file with .B pdfroff of the .I groff system . . .\" ==================================================================== .SH AUTHORS .\" ==================================================================== This document was written by .MT groff\-bernd.warken\-72@\:web.de Bernd Warken .ME . . . .\" ==================================================================== .SH "SEE ALSO" .\" ==================================================================== . . .TP History and future .BR roff (7), .BR man\-pages (7), .BR groff_diff (7), .BR groff (7) . . .TP .I Compression .BR uncompress (1posix), .BR gzip2 (1), .BR bzip2 (1), .BR xz (1) . . .P A man page of the naming form .IB name ( n ) can be read in text mode by .RS .EX .BI man " n name" .EE .RE or in graphical mode (PDF) by .RS .EX .BI groffer " n name" .EE .RE . . .P .UR https://\:github.com/\:n\-t\-roff/\:heirloom\-doctools .I Gunnar Ritter's Heirloom roff project .UE . . You can get this package with the shell command: .RS .EX \(Do \fBgit clone https://github.com/n\-t\-roff/heirloom\-doctools\fP .EE .RE . . .\" ==================================================================== .\" Emacs settings .\" ==================================================================== . .\" Local Variables: .\" mode: nroff .\" End: .\" vim: set filetype=groff: